If I Got A Tattoo...

It used to be that tattoos were rare.  They were secreted away underneath clothing, and not a soul knew they were there, at least out in public.  Many servicemen got tattoos while overseas, and it was a reminder of a different time, but not much else.  Women with tattoos were considered loose women, so very definitely they were covered up.  Nowadays you are more likely to meet someone with tattoos than without.  Where there used to be a stigma, tattoos are no big deal.

I've always played a "what if" game, thinking about what sorts of tattoos I would get if I wanted.  Tattoos are permanent, for the most part.  I wanted to make sure that I really, really liked the art work before I went to the trouble of paying someone to stab me multiple times with needle ink.  I thought about an ouroboros, the snake eating its tail.   I thought about a picture I saw in one of Elton John's more popular albums from the 1970s.  The daydreams were pleasant, but not much came of them beyond the dreaming.  I'm not the sort of person to just get drunk and end up in a tattoo parlor at two in the morning.  As much of a committment-phobe as I am, I just couldn't see spending the cash.  Well, the needle thing was kind of a deal breaker, too.  Part of my reluctance to get a tattoo in the first place might also stem from not knowing how I will feel after the tattoo is finished.  Buyer's remorse doesn't count after this sort of transaction, and even if you have the receipt, you probably aren't getting a refund.

And then I found this somewhere.  Probably on the internet.  It's a phoenix.  I love the elegant lines, seemingly random.  I identify with the phoenix, a mythical creature who dies, bursts into flames, and rises out of the ashes newborn.  Not that I've died and come back, but I have survived a number of adverse situations. I'm still kicking, even after all this cancer fun.  I just can't seem to decide where I should put this beauty.  On my arm?  My back?  How big or small?  More daydreams for now. I am going to be getting at least two tattoos this year.  After my reconstruction and mastectomy is done, the plastic surgery people will be tattooing nipples on my new breasts.  I will see how I handle getting those.  If I can handle those, this tattoo may be in my future.

Unless something better comes along.

Commitment

My husband and I were relaxing the other night, watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. One of those commercials came on, with a lovingly compensated couple crooning about the wonderfulness that is their partner. We rolled our eyes.

"Yeah, we'll see how loving you are when you have to hold her hair while she's barfing on you!" I hooted.

We laughed together about the absurdity of those match-up commercials as we went to sleep. I'm not knocking these websites specifically. I just think that they portray love in a very distorted way.

There's so much more to a relationship than that goofy initiation phase, and I get very tired of having that kind of love in relationships emphasized over and over. It sets a bad example, you see. People(aka impressionable teenagers) see that version and think that that is what romantic love is all about, 24/7. On television and in the movies, couples are either madly in love or they hate each other. Reality is very different. Reality is about making a commitment to each other.

My husband decided that he loved me when I quickly downed a bottle of beer and then burped louder than him in the parking lot outside the bar.

But his commitment was sitting in the ICU while I was in a coma and he didn't know if I would ever wake up. I, in turn, held his hand throughout his cancer diagnosis and treatment. That is what commitment means: sticking around during the bad parts.

Life happens, and things can get ugly. Messy. People fart. People snore. People scratch themselves in embarrassing places. Sometimes they do all this in close proximity to you. At those times, love is not really the word that may describe your feelings, unless you are really weird.

It is in the trenches of the relationship that you forge a relationship, not the peaks. 'For better'...that part of the vow everyone remembers, and that is what those dating websites are selling. It's the 'for worse' that nobody thinks about before walking down the aisle. If you're not willing to stay with your partner during the 'for worse' times, however, you're not as committed to the relationship as you may need to be.